Bending Toward Justice - by Christine Schenk (Hardcover)

About the Book

Inside story of the battles between the Vatican and US Catholic bishops over the rampant closings of Catholic parishes in poor and ethnically diverse neighborhoods across the U.S.-and the social justice advocate and canon lawyer Sister Kate Kuenstler who led the fight to keep them open.

Book Synopsis

Inside story of the battles between the Vatican and US Catholic bishops over the rampant closings of Catholic parishes in poor and ethnically diverse neighborhoods across the U.S.-and the social justice advocate and canon lawyer Sister Kate Kuenstler who led the fight to keep them open.

Review Quotes

Bending Toward Justice offers the compelling story Sister Kate Kuenstler, a midwestern U.S. nun who used her training in the Church#39;s legal system (Canon Law) to awaken Catholicsmdash;from average churchgoers all the way through the popesmdash;to the rights of lay Catholics. Once again, and with punch, the book raises the questionmdash;where would the church be without its sisters? A warm and fitting tribute to Kuenstler as a true leader of the church, the book also promises to inspire Catholics to take ownership of their faith and their parishes as scenes of communal meaning, power, and justice.

The shift in the demographics of Catholics as well as the changing number of priests to serve as pastors in the decades since the 1960s led to a serious situation of what to do with the many parishes erected in dioceses. Out of necessity, dioceses had to make decisions to close and/or combine parishes. But these decisions often caused loss of identity for the parishioners who held the impacted parishes as a central piece of their lives. A parish is more than property and a pastor. It is where the parishioners are formed and sustained in their faith lives. Decisions to close parishes have to involve the parishioners from the very beginning of the consideration and need to be based on more than what are practical business choices. This text presents well the painful journey of this decision-making and information on how the Church#39;s canon law provides means of recourse for parishioners who experience being left out of the conversation to close their parish. It is well-worth reading.

Through the text Bending Toward Justice, Sr Christine Schenk captures well Sr Kate Kuenstlerrsquo;s love for the Church alongside her fight for just treatment of the laity when bishops overstepped. It presents this canon lawyerrsquo;s walk of the thin line between directness and discretion, criticism of the Church with loving respect, and the unrelenting quest for justice for its faithful when their parishes were threatened by unlawful closure.

About the Author

Sister Christine Schenk has worked as a nurse midwife to low-income families, a community organizer, a writer-researcher, and the founding director of an international church reform organization, FutureChurch. Currently she writes an award-winning column for the National Catholic Reporter. Schenk is the author of Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity (2017), which received first place in the history category from the Catholic Press Association. Her most recent book, To Speak the Truth in Love: A Biography of Sr. Theresa Kane RSM (2019) won first place in biography from The Association of Catholic Publishers and a first place in biography from the Catholic Press Association. She is featured in the award-winning documentary Radical Grace and the 2017 documentary Foreclosing on Faith: America's Church Closing Crisis which documents the pioneering canonical advocacy of the late Sr. Kate Kuenstler, which changed Vatican policy around church closings.